


In Such a Strong Fire

by natascha_ronin



Series: All Souls Trilogy [1]
Category: A Discovery of Witches (TV), All Souls Trilogy - Deborah Harkness
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Multi, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 09:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16678807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natascha_ronin/pseuds/natascha_ronin
Summary: Probably the first in a series of headcanon fics for the All Souls Trilogy. TV show fans: WARNING: book spoilers for Shadow of Night and The Book of Life.Mateu is Occitan for Matthew, which is likely how they pronounced his name.See A/N at the end.





	In Such a Strong Fire

The fire couldn’t warm him.

He was a lanky boy, constantly running around with energy surpassing his limbs, and he tended to run a little cold. The absence of food in his belly didn’t help; but it was _Divendres_ , the last day of the week, and there would be barley and fava beans tomorrow when he broke his fast. 

He was interrupted by a commotion at the door of the small house. It was dusk, and his father walked in, shaking gravel and dust from his clothes. Papa always said that Mateu looked like his mother, but he hoped to someday be the image of his father: tall with dark hair, a strong back and hands made for cutting stone.

Papa walked over to him and chuffed a greeting. 

“Build up the fire and go outside to play.” He put his tools down next to the table in the opposite corner of the room and lit a lamp. Someone important must have been coming by; Papa didn’t waste expensive oil to light rooms after dark. Mateu rarely went out after dark. 

He was right in his assumption. No sooner had he walked in from the wood pile than the room was filled with Lord de Clermont’s large frame, his rusty hair shining in the dim light. 

“Bonser!” he boomed the evening greeting into the small room. “Cossí va?”

He was carrying a large scroll of paper, and he laid it on the table. 

Papa’s weathered face lit up. “We are well, thank you my lord.”

Lord de Clermont clasped Papa’s arm. “How many more times must I ask you to call me Philippe, hm? We are building a church for the village, are we not co-laborers? Friends?”

“Once more, I’m afraid, Philippe.” Papa was not a timid man by any means, but every man was shadowed in the frame of such an intimidating figure like Philippe de Clermont.

Philippe turned to Mateu, whose long arms were full of logs for the fire. “And how is young Matthaios? Growing strong as the trees, I see.” He always said his name in Greek as an endearment. 

“Very well, thank you.”

Philippe’s eyes turned merry, his face splitting into a wide smile as he turned his barrel chest to Papa. “He’s a good boy. He’ll make a fine stonemason.” 

Papa snorted. “If he could stay still long enough to handle the precision of shaping rocks, otherwise he will end up a quarryman, like my brother.” 

Lord de Clermont’s eyes were tight, as if he was assessing Mateu. He took a deep breath, which filled his large chest. “Perhaps the boy would serve the world better as a scribe. I could teach him to read and write –” 

“No, no.” Mateu’s father waved a hand in dismissal. “We don’t want to trouble you.”

Mateu piled the wood on the low fire and grabbed the poker to get it going. He tried to make himself small, curling his long legs into his chest, not liking the attention. 

“Here,” Philippe reached forward and pulled the poker from his hand. He crouched down next to Mateu in front of the fire. It licked weakly around the new logs. “You have to stoke the coals under the logs to move the air and strengthen the fire.” His voice was low and calm, much like his papa’s when he was teaching him a new task around the church building site. He made a show of sticking the iron poker under the logs and briskly shoving it in and out of the fire. He blew on the hot coals and the fire roared to life.

“See? It’s going to burn much better now. The best fires have a day’s worth of charred wood under them to give them enough wind to last the night.” He pulled the logs around to form a column. His large hands didn’t seem bothered by the heat. He handed the poker back to Mateu. “Give it a try.”

Mateu repeated Philippe’s motions, moving the coals around until the fire started to roar in the small hearth. 

“You’ve got it, my boy.” He clapped his hand on Mateu’s shoulder. 

Papa had unrolled the scroll and was poring over it. The room was quiet except for the rumbling of Mateu’s stomach. 

“Matthaios, would you see to my horse outside?” Philippe pulled a small satchel from the belt around his tunic. “Though I’m afraid all I have is a bag of fruit and nuts for you as payment.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary,” Papa waved Mateu outside.

“I insist.” He held the bag out to Mateu. “Take it.”

Mateu hesitantly took the suede bag from the man’s large hands. They were cold to the touch. 

Philippe smiled, his eyes shining. “Mercés.”

 

The fire couldn’t warm him.

After Ysabeau turned him, she and Philippe brought him back to Sept-Tours, her blood enough to heal the wounds and broken bones from his fall, but not enough to erase the memory and shame he still carried. 

Ysabeau crouched next to his naked body, his bloody clothes in a pile next to him. The sight and scent of his own blood troubled and unnerved him, so they had removed his tunic and trousers, filthy from the fall to the floor as well.

He had stared into the fire for hours, eyes black as pitch, with Philippe’s cloak wrapped around him, his frame larger than they had ever seen him. Vampires were naturally larger than their human counterparts, but his frame seemed almost too long, his face gaunt after a lifetime of near-starvation and a new life of needing blood to survive thrust upon him.

“He’ll grow into himself,” Philippe had said when Ysabeau express concern over his pale, thin frame, “He just needs to hunt.”

But Mateu was inconsolable, taking deep sighs as he pondered the flames licking along the soot-covered stone. 

And so, Ysabeau waited, much like a mother waited for her child in labor to be born, to take his first breath, to cry out for nourishment. She sat and waited for him in unspoken trepidation until she could take no more of his silence, and went to crouch next to him.

“Mateu, I –”

“Don’t!” He winced at the sound of his own voice, so different and beyond the rage he felt. He whispered, instead, “Don’t call me Mateu.”

Philippe appeared in the doorway of the room, his large frame blocking the torches in the hall, and he waited. 

Mateu cleared his throat. “That was my Christian name. I am no longer among the living, nor am I dead, but departed from this world and myself but somehow within it. I am not certain what I am, but it is not Mateu.”

Ysabeau nodded solemly, a solid red tear streaking down her cheek for the second time in the same day. “I understand.” She took a deep breath. “I am sorry. I offered you life, and I only gave you death.”

“I gave myself this death,” Mateu looked at his sire fully. “You gave me punishment for my sins.”

“I never meant that for you. I am not your god.”

Mateu breathed deeply, a shuddering breath, his first in several minutes. “It was meant as the Lord’s own retribution,” He looked away and into the flames. “for taking my own life.”

“You have two lives.” Philippe spoke, now, from the doorway, and walked toward them. Mateu looked up at him, dark brows keeping his eyes in shadow and light. “The second one begins when you realize you only have one.”

Mateu broke his gaze, ashamed. “So you say.”

“That was Confucius. Not me.”

Ysabeau gave Philippe a withering look, but he could see the worry in her eyes.

“Matthaios,” Philippe crouched down in front of his old clothes. His eyes darted to them before he spoke again. “You are overcome with rage. You must hunt.”  
Mateu shook his head. “I will never do that.”

Philippe smiled, like a father to his hesitant son. “Fine by me.” He stood. “We settle this like men.” He walked out of the room.

Mateu looked up at Ysabeau, confused. “Where is he going?”

Ysabeau shook her head. “The hay barn.”

“But it’s dark.”

Ysabeau guided his long frame up, ignoring his nakedness. He looked not unlike a boy in her arms. “Yes, Philippe-son, but you will find that you can see best at night.”

Mateu’s dark eyes widened. “But what am I?”

Ysabeau leveled her ancient gaze at him. “You, my beloved son, Matthew,” she kissed both of his cheeks, “are the wolf.”

 

The fire could not warm him.

Philippe stared into the hearth, vacant, blood running down his arms, shaking.

“He’ll heal somehow, in this life or the next.” Ysabeau called to the man in the doorway.

Matthew’s large frame filled it. He couldn’t help but wince at the desperation in his mother’s voice. 

“Maman.”

Ysabeau took a shuddering breath. “I must hold out some hope.”

Matthew walked toward her like a ferris trying to calm a horse with an injured hoof. 

“Everything will be alright.”

“He has asked for death.” Ysabeau’s eyes were heavy and haunted by her mate’s request. 

“You should take a break.” Matthew ran a hand over his mother’s shoulder in comfort.

“I haven’t slept in weeks.”

Matthew kissed her brow while his eyes surveyed his father. “Sleep, maman.”

She shook her head slowly, a deep breath exiting her tired lungs. “I only want peace for him, now.”

His eyes still on his father’s broken frame, he said absently to her exiting form, “Moi aussi.” _Me, too._

Philippe looked at something beyond the flames. “Your beloved stands watch.”

Matthew shrugged out of his oilskin, the lamps in his parents’ library illuminating his uniform. “What beloved?”

His father smiled, as if indulging him, but not really seeing him. “The goddess.”

Matthew smiled indulgently. His father was not of this world at present. “Ah, yes.”

“She is as beautiful as the day I met her.”

“Maman?”

Philippe snorted, his eyes focused for merely a second, his crippled body forgotten for a lucid moment. “No, _I kori mou._ ”

“Your daughter? Louisa?” Matthew approached his father slowly, cautiously.

Philippe only smiled.

“Verin?”

His father shook his head. “You will learn soon enough of my bloodsworn beloved magissa, Artemis.” He smiled at something unseen in the room, his eyes focused on something past Matthew’s shoulder.

“You sent for me, father.”

Philippe nodded to the unseen spirit in the room. Matthew smelled a hint of Lady’s Mantle and honey. 

“I am at your behest.” Matthew kneeled before him. A knight before his king. A son before his father. A warrior before his commander.

Philippe needed the warrior tonight. 

“It is time.” Father’s eyes met son’s in a moment of absolute clarity. “You alone will understand. I must leave this world, Matthaios.” 

Matthew looked at his father, unflinching, but trembling. 

“Matthaios, Matthew, Philippe, my own son.” He raised a violently trembling hand to his son’s cheek and caressed it. “You must do what I cannot.”

Matthew knew, at once, what his father was asking. His eyes went black with fear and grief. “Papa.”

“Son.” Philippe embraced him. “You know the harrowing death I have seen. You alone are brave enough to see it through mine eyes.”

Matthew gasped. His father had seen too much, been through too much. 

“Matthew,” he whispered, “the goddess is here. It is what you must do. Gouge out my good eye if you must, but please don’t –” his father began to tremble -- “don’t leave me here to waste and perish while the world moves on without me.”

He knew the fear Philippe faced, seeing his own blood. It called back fourteen-hundred years, to that fateful day when Mateu fell from the top of the church and Matthew was reborn and could not bear the sight of his own blood. 

He knew what he must do.

“Pateras.” He embraced his father.

“Agapetos gios.” _My beloved son._

And Matthew knew. He knew as he took Philippe’s wrist in his hand, because he couldn’t bear to take his father’s blood and not look him in the eye, that the man who was instrumental in his own life was asking him to take life from him. He could not bear it but would not take the life of his father any other way. And Philippe would leave this life looking death in the eye. 

Oh, yes, Matthew was, in every way, his family’s instrument of death. 

His lips brushed Philippe’s wrist. “Are you certain, father?”

“We are formed from wisdom, Matthaios.” Philippe’s haunted, broken eyes met his son’s. “Your goddess, me, my beloved wife—who will mourn me for centuries to come, I’m afraid. And you. You are from a god far more benevolent than my own gods, and you will know love,” he shook his head, “and I know not when, but the future is from whence we came.”

Teeth bit into flesh. “Rest, now, father. Let me take this burden.”

Philippe’s eyes were full of sorrow. “I would not wish it,” and his memories came like specters through a broken window pane into his mind’s eye. And then he saw her, fully, hair like fire and eyes like the moon on the ocean, “but she will be with you like she is with us here.” 

Diana placed one hand in Philippe’s, a finger over her lips, and began to utter words of comfort and to shield his memories of her from his son. Millennia passed through his eyes to hers, through his blood to Matthew’s. 

Red tears began to stream down Philippe’s and Matthew’s faces. Father and son faced the atrocities of lifetimes, of war, of sorrow, of bloodshed. 

And his daughter, blood smeared over her brow, bow on her back, placed her other hand invisibly over Matthew’s shoulder. 

“Thank you, _agapimena paidia mou_.” 

_My beloved children._  
_How you weep._  
_Though you are apart,_  
_Soon you comfort one another,_  
_Love and life and death._  
_Oh, and you are with me._

_At dawn you shall appear;_  
_A gaunt red-legged crane_  
_You whom they know too well for fear,_  
_Lunging your beak down like a spear_  
_To fetch them home again._

_O virgin queen, unto my prayer incline,_  
_Bless him and cast thy blessing_  
_On our line._

**Author's Note:**

> The first stanza of the poem is mine, the first line is the translation for the last words Philippe says in Greek. The second stanza is from the poem Return of the Goddess by Robert Graves, and the third stanza is from On the Tomb of a Priestess of Artemis by Sappho. Artemis is the Greek equivalent of Diana. Many thanks to Confucius, though I doubt Philippe really liked him all that much. Also, I headcanon that Diana hid Philippe’s memories of her from her husband, though she didn’t spare Matthew the pain of every other memory. Some things in time are fixed, and time ladies—er—walkers know this. ;-)


End file.
